October 26, 2021:
Acreage located east of the Hickory St and Willow St subdivision has received preliminary approval from the Planning Commission and Village Council. Tuesday October 19th, 2021, Greg Modic representing the Petros Development Group presented their plan to develop acreage purchased the group in January 2021. The land was rezoned in early 2021 from 1-Ra to R-1b single family homes allowing the size of develop parcels to be consistent with many parcels currently developed on both Hickory and Willow.
The Hickory and Willow Street developments were first constructed as early as 1920. Construction would later stall during the great Depression only to regain momentum post World War II. The development again stalled when the final home was built in 1957 leaving both Hickory St and Willow St with a dead-end into the property now proposed for continued residential development.
Grafton History: Circa 1965 both Hickory St and Willow St experienced near total devastation from a tornado, the damage took between four to five years to reconstruct the homes lost from the weather event.
The WILLOW CREST development as proposed creates 125 homesite parcels with connected ingress/egress to both Hickory and Willow and three ingress/egress access intersections with what will be the newly developed Reservoir Park drive roadway. The multiple points of ingress/egress identified by the developer, the Village Engineer, and Grafton Safety Service as the best design for greater safety accessibility and community connect ability with sidewalks with connect ability and walk ability being identified and highlighted through the Grafton 2019 TLCI feasibility study.
The development as proposed will be constructed in two phase and will work in concert with Village plans to reconstruct park drive and add need paved and controlled parking and sidewalks for Reservoir Park ball visitors and those who want to park and enjoy the soon to be constructed walking paths in Reservoir Park and around Grafton reservoir. The soon to be constructed walking paths are primarily funded through a State of Ohio Capital Budget Grant awarded in 2020 and funds must be used by June 30, 2022. The grant amount award totaled $150,000.00. The remaining park improvements are estimated to cost as much as four million dollars and the primary funding source will be Grafton’s first Tax Increment Funding (TIF) district made possible by the Willow Crest subdivision investment.
The Petros Development Group must now have their engineering complete final plans for the Willow Crest subdivision and present them to the Planning Commission and Council for final approval at a future Planning Commission meeting. The Petros Group has also agreed to provide a traffic impact study with their application for final approval. Planning Commission meetings are held on the third Tuesday beginning at 7:00 pm, prior to or in conjunction with the regularly scheduled second monthly meeting of Village Council.